I'm writing a book and I want to know what you think the most important thing to have is. What is it that grabs you and makes you want to keep reading?
I'm writing a book and I want to know what you think the most important thing to have is. What is it that grabs you and makes you want to keep reading?
The most important thing from page one is making the reading care about the protagonist. Novels are about characters. Readers remember characters more than the plot or storyline.
Ah, Jonathan stole the words right out of my mouth. You need to have good characters, if the readers don't care about the character's, they won't read the book. But what comes after the character's is probably the plot. The plot needs to engage the reader, and is very crucial. But if I had to say, the MOST important, it would be- Originality. Even if not completely, there needs to be something, something unique and different about your work.
Hope I helped.
For me it's the character(s). If they're believable, sympathetic and struggling I need to know how things turn out.
It helps if there's a puzzle or some action right at the beginning, even if the MC is not directly involved, because that begs questions about what is to follow.
But if characterisation is thin the best plot in the world quickly runs out of steam. Got about three chapters into The Da Vinci Code before I gave up.